Registries Reviews

ENCR experts are available to carry out registry reviews through site visits. The fundamental purpose of the structured review is to evaluate a registry's performance, identify strengths and limitations of procedures and outputs, and provide a set of recommendations to the registry, taking into account available resources and other factors.

Registries wishing to be reviewed should send a request to the ENCR Secretariat (jrc-encr@ec.europa.eu).More details on the process will then be provided. The review team (usually two people) will be selected by the ENCR Steering Committee and spend two or three days in the registry, interviewing staff and reviewing relevant documents and procedures.

During the review process, the ENCR experts will discuss with the local experts the main activities relevant to cancer registration, including data collection, management, quality control, analysis and dissemination. This may be particularly useful for recently-established registries, or where transitions are underway, for example, where there are legal or organisational obstacles to registration.

A comprehensive review report will be prepared following the site visit and, upon approval by the ENCR Steering Committee, sent to the requesting registry. The report will contain a detailed description of the registration procedures, as shown in the example template report, based on the ENCR Working Group on Structured Reviews of Cancer Registries (2000) document. A brief questionnaire will be sent to the registry prior to the visit to collect background information.

The costs for the structured review, travel, and per diem for the review team will normally have to be covered by the cancer registry.